18th Street Gang

The 18th Street Gang, also known as "M18", "Calle 18", "Barrio 18", "La18" or "Mara-18" in Central America, is a multi-ethnic transnational criminal organization that started as a street gang in the Rampart area of Los Angeles, California. Believed to have been founded near 18th Street and Union Avenue in the Rampart District of Los Angeles, this gang is considered to be the largest transnational criminal gang in Los Angeles and it is estimated that there are tens of thousands of members in Los Angeles County alone. Even though 18th Street are estimated to have approximately 15,000 members in Los Angeles County, they are actually a collection of approximately 20 separate individual autonomous gangs operating under the same label with separate barrios. Their wide-ranging activities and elevated status has even caught the eye of the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who recently initiated wide-scale raids against known and suspected gang members netting hundreds of arrests across the country. The FBI has documented close to 65,000 active gang members and they are active in 120 cities in 37 U.S. states. The majority of 18th Streetcliques operating throughout Southern California are the result of Los Angeles members migrating to other areas and establishing their own cliques. 18th Street cliques have been identified in 120 cities in 37 states and the District of Columbia in the United States, as well as Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Canada and possibly Australia.